Originally published on April 21, 2019.
Drawing on Masayuki Takayama’s book America and China Arrogantly Lie, this essay criticizes the Japanese government for prioritizing massive spending on foreign countries and international institutions over the rebuilding of Japanese lives at home.
Centered on Lee Teng-hui’s warning that Japan must first spend money for the Japanese people, it sharply condemns Japan’s outward appeasement and fiscal irresponsibility through examples such as ODA to China, UN contributions, IMF funding, and aid to the Mekong region.

2019-04-21
Japan should stop paying UN contributions… .
When I met Lee Teng-hui, he told me, “Japan must first think about spending money for the Japanese people.”
“Such as doubling the size of the homes people live in, or doubling the roads,” he said.

The following passage as well vividly shows that Masayuki Takayama is a true journalist and a truly unbending man.

It is from pp. 74–75 of America and China Arrogantly Lie, published by Tokuma Shoten, priced at 1,300 yen.
*The bold emphasis in black, other than the title, is mine.

Japan should stop paying UN contributions.

When I met Lee Teng-hui, he told me, “Japan must first think about spending money for the Japanese people.”
“Such as doubling the size of the homes people live in, or doubling the roads,” he said.

Yet the Japanese government prefers making a good impression on other countries rather than on the Japanese people.
Even now, it is still providing ODA to China, which has already overtaken Japan and become the world’s second-largest economy in terms of GDP.

Text omitted.

Japan also lavishes money on the United Nations.
Though it is not even a permanent member, it bears 13 percent of the contributions, second only to the United States.
China, a permanent member, says it is “a developing country” and pays only 3 percent.

But the government says that if Japan does not pay its contributions, it will lose its voting rights and influence at the United Nations.
Even if that happened, would anything be different from now?

In 2011, Japan was struck by a once-in-a-thousand-years great tsunami.
Its GDP also fell, and that summer every factory was brought to a halt by electricity-saving measures.
The Democratic Party government said Japan was half-dead and that taxes had to be raised.

And yet Noda, appearing at the Mekong River Basin conference, declared, “We will provide 2.3 trillion yen in aid.”
China had already long since extended its hand over that river.
It was little different from simply handing it over to China for free.

Japan also casually put up 60 billion dollars for the IMF, in the midst of the EU crisis.
Azumi, that little man, was giddy, saying, “They were very pleased.”

The money that went into the IMF would be used to rescue the bankruptcies of Greece and Spain.
Yet the United States, despite suffering no tsunami damage, refused to contribute on the pretext of a “fiscal crisis,” and China followed suit.

Within Japan, there were tax increases and austerity.
But abroad, lavish feasting and generosity.

When Sarkozy tried to do the same thing in France, he was defeated outright in the presidential election.
Japanese politicians ought to at least look a little at how the world moves.